Shahrestan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A Shahrestan (in Persian شهرستان) is a geographical political division in Iran, an area inside an ostan, and consists of a city centre, few bakhsh and many villages around them. The world Shahrestan comes from the Persian language words: shahr and ostan which means city (or town) and province respectively. The nearest equivalent of Shahrestan in English would be sub-province or county.
Each Shahrestan has a governmental office known as Farmandari which coordinates different events and governmental offices. The Farmandar, or the head of Farmandari, is the governor of the Shahrestan which is the highest governmental authority in the division.
Among provinces of Iran, Fars has the highest number of Shahrestans, with 23, while Semnan and South Khorasan have only 4 Shahrestans each. Iran had 324 Shahrestans in 2005.